Stephen Bleile

Hello Everyone.

I’ve had an idea:  Let’s put Rogers and Blockbusters out of business.  It would be great fun and it would be a sweet way to get to know the neighbors.

Here’s the thing.  On an average street, with average neighbors, and average life styles we can assume that there are a lot of people watching movies that they have either purchased or rented.

On average they are likely watching a lot of the same movies.  THE SAME MOVIES I WOULD SPEND $5 TO RENT.  This is how Blockbusters / Rogers make money.  They sell the same thing over and over again.  Their model works soley because neighbors are not organized enough to share their resources.

IDEA: What if you could set up some sort of system whereby people on your block would know what movies you and everyone else has.  Then, when they want to ‘rent’ a movie they could just cross the street and borrow it from you or  Mr. and Mrs. Smith  instead?

I’m sure some facebook app. could be designed… or maybe just a google doc to share the information? It could be pretty basic:

Mr. and Mrs. Smith have the following titles:  blah, blah, and blah.  Jimmie has the following titles: (blah, zip and zap.)

It’s really like napster… only you would actually be sharing a physical thing.  And THAT is certainly above board.

I think you could meet a lot of your neighbors, save some money, and even have quite a good time in the process.  Some entrepreneurial person might even make a buck off of said system.

If enough people did it we could even put Rogers/ Blockbusters out of business… or at very least force them to stock hard to find movies.

Little kids have the right idea.  Get a friend.  Connect your imaginations.  And go on an adventure.

Luckily for me, I’m not too old to keep up the same tricks.

This week I met with three friends – hoping they would help me to write the book I don’t know how to write.  Trent creates experiences with purpose for his corporate clients.  Justin is a Sr. Communications guy (despite being but 30 years old) at an oil company, and Christine is a retired prof from the U of C who taught Justin and me rhetoric in Uni and who happens to remind me (quite a bit) of my Gran in the UK.

My three friends and I never went anywhere, per se, but we did go on an adventure.  We never left our chairs, but we overcome obstacles, shared fellowship, and experienced the adventure that is reserved for those who have not forgotten how to really live life together.